DRAB, OLIVE-COLOURED FUTURE

Tim Blair

–,
Monday,
December,
31,
2012,(1:07am)

A new year looms, so please gaze into my crystal balls for this preview of 2013 …

JANUARY • Delighted with the success of her drab, olive-coloured cigarette packets, Labor attorney general Nicola Roxon decrees that all dangerous products must wear similar coverings. Julia Gillard debuts her new olive attire later that evening.

• After hitting a Test century while injured in Melbourne, Michael Clarke somehow hits yet another in Sydney while on the couch at home.

• Geoffrey Rush is named Australian of the Year, but the award is revoked eight days later when someone remembers the actor was already Australian of the Year in 2012.

FEBRUARY • Continuing their campaign of reaching out to mainstream voters, the Greens announce that they are now in favour of private enterprise.

• Wearing a drab, olive-coloured sack, Kevin Rudd declares that he has no interest in reclaiming Labor’s leadership. “I’m just happy to be the humble member for Griffith,” Rudd yells from the Parliament House spire.

APRIL • Psy’s much-awaited follow up to his 2012 hit “Gangnam Style” is an international flop. “Craig Emerson Style”, featuring the Australian trade minister’s signature mistimed dance moves, abruptly ends the South Korean’s entertainment career.

• Spokespeople for Julian Assange plead with media to give the Wikileaks founder coverage during his ongoing residency at London’s Ecuadorian embassy. “He hasn’t had any publicity at all for two weeks,” says a Wikileaks representative. “It’s killing him.” In a humanitarian gesture, the ABC briefly mentions Assange in a Q & A press release.

• Due to economic constraints, US President Barack Obama is reduced to making his latest address via scribbled notes given to passers-by outside a Washington 7-Eleven. “I wanted to make this announcement on the Hildebrand,” read the notes, handed out by Obama himself, “but we can’t afford the air time.”

• A revamped Twitter format will allow users to simply quit their jobs, saving them the trouble of being fired for controversial comments.

JULY • With every current Australian fast bowler on the injured list, 67-year-old Queenslander Geoff Dymock opens the attack for the Aussies in the First Test against England at Nottingham.

• Asylum seekers erupt in protest at the long delays caused by a logjam of vessels between the Indonesian coast and Australian waters. “Hopefully when we get to Sydney all our traffic problems will be over,” says asylum seeker Ahmed Mohammed Ahmo.

• Injured fast bowler Geoff Dymock withdraws from the Second Test at Lord’s. His replacement will be decided by a Vietnam-style ballot conducted among all Australian males aged 16 to 75.

AUGUST • To save time, Julia Gillard delivers her concession speech while voting in the federal election at Altona Gate Primary School.

• Climate commissioner Tim Flannery is a stunning success during his Test debut against England in Manchester. Despite wearing a heavy, drab, olive-coloured outfit, the global warming activist claims 5/27 in England’s second innings to reclaim the Ashes for Australia.

• Tony Abbott’s first decision as new Prime Minister is to rescind the Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902. “This ancient law has no place in modern society,” he tells Parliament.

SEPTEMBER • The privatisation of the ABC is a surprisingly rapid process, with mining magnate Gina Rinehart quickly purchasing almost all of the public broadcaster. Triple J remains without a buyer, although some interest has been indicated from two Victorian ham radio enthusiasts.

OCTOBER • Former attorney-general Nicola Roxon is escorted from the Mount Panorama racetrack after attempting to cover some of the more brightly-decorated Bathurst 1000 racers with drab, olive-coloured tarpaulins.

• Occupy Sydney’s last occupants conclude their long stand at Martin Place, only to discover that their parents have retired and moved to Queensland.

NOVEMBER • US President Barack Obama’s historic 2009 inauguration costume and children are up for sale on eBay.

• Three months after the election, nobody in Labor will admit to being the party’s leader. “Not me,” says Bill Shorten, denying speculation in the Fairfax media.

DECEMBER • Hamas leaders discover a brilliant method of safeguarding the Palestinian population from Israeli attacks: don’t attack Israel first.

• Tim Mathieson continues adapting to his new life as First Bloke to Prime Minister Tony Abbott. “I just tidy up around the place then watch Question Time on the Hildebrand,” says the long-term Lodge resident. “Nobody seems to mind.”

Hildebrand?
As for the drab olive colour, that is the new navy, black, pink and white. No doubt you don’t keep up with fashions.
This year the drab olive sack goes retro and has darker and lighter stripes for people undergoing re-education/counselling/.
Nicola Roxon does impersonations of a muppet by standing in front of drab olive curtain, so only her head is visible bobbing like a volleyball in the ocean.
Surrounded by an ocean of sexists and misogynists, Roxon passes a new law. All men are to be renamed Wilson.

Tim be careful, very careful. After reading your predictions for 2013, if drab Olive Roxon brings in the new freedom of speech restrictions your crystal balls will be crushed and you will be in the gulag for offences against the State.

Dear Tim,
I read your piece and wondered if you had been sniffing something, on the funny pills or drunk when you achieved this masterpiece? [A little from column A, a little from column B, a little from column C - Tim]
Anyway--it’s 4.35am and quite warm here in the West so a great start to the day with a bit of humour.Well done my friend.

Three months after the election, nobody in Labor will admit to being the party’s leader.

Correction: three months after the election, nobody will admit to ever having been in the ALP.

The Greens’ cunning ploy of whiting-out some of their looniest policies is a bit like a company that manufactures a line of cyanide-flavoured baked beans. When people complain these are poisonous, the manufacturer responds by removing the word ‘cyanide’ from the contents list on the label. “Now shut up and eat your beans!”

Remember Tim ‘smoking harms your baby’ but apparently not my two six footers, but they’re going to need drab olive on their cars, sugary drinks and the Grange and Hunter Valley Reds to get through the day in future.

At 61 there’ll be no colourful tobacco pouches for pussies around here. We tough guys can roll with the luvvies’ scolding any day and passive smokers can buy their bloody own with that level of Gummint carbon taxing.

February: Prime minister Julia Gillard decrees that henceforth she will talk only to women. Policewomen are called into the frog-march angry male former ministers from the Cabinet Room. Absent from the evictees is deputy PM Wayne Swan, who emerges later in an olive green frock to announce that his trip to the Asian finance ministers conference in Bangkok was a roaring success and people should now call him Wanda.